The ACC is no stranger to innovation, especially when it comes to advancing solutions that facilitate quality improvement. For more than 20 years, the College has played instrumental roles in helping to identify, track and compare trends and gaps in cardiovascular care through its NCDR suite of registries.

Add large-scale quality campaigns offering evidence-based best practices to meet guideline-recommended care, as well as accreditation services, and the ACC provides a comprehensive suite of tools that can be harnessed by hospitals, institutions and cardiovascular professionals to transform cardiovascular care and improve heart health.

"ACC's NCDR registries, accreditation services and other programs and tools for hospitals and health system have – and continue to – contribute enormously to understanding best practices in clinical care and improving patient outcomes," says ACC CEO Timothy Attebery, DSc, MBA, FACHE. "The gains we have made to date, and the innovations that will guide us into the future, are a tribute to the vision of ACC leaders (past and present), the dedication of ACC staff, and the commitment of hospitals and health systems that participate in these programs."

To date, the College's 10 hospital and outpatient registries provide participants with the information needed to understand their current performance, improve the quality of care they deliver, and demonstrate their successes.

Beyond registries, quality campaigns like the Door-to-Balloon Initiative, Hospital to Home, Surviving MI, and, most recently, the Patient Navigator Program: Focus MI and Reduce the Risk: PCI Bleed campaigns have provided hospitals and health systems with tools necessary to make proven change, change hospital cultures and save lives.

ACC Accreditation Services continues to bring science to the bedside and help hospitals and institutions improve processes and patient outcomes in chest pain centers, cardiac cath labs, electrophysiology and heart failure.

However, in today's health care environment, where costs and value are increasingly part of the quality care equation, achieving the quadruple aim of better care, improved outcomes, lower costs and clinician well-being requires also going beyond the clinical aspects of caring for patients.

In 2017, two task forces convened by the ACC Board of Trustees identified the need for the development of comprehensive solutions for the cardiovascular enterprise that address the business, financial and nonclinical aspects of health care. Their recommendations were incorporated within ACC's new Strategic Plan as a call for a comprehensive health system strategy.

The College is already starting to deliver on this strategy with the recent addition of MedAxiom to the ACC family. MedAxiom will help the College increase its relevance as the professional home for cardiovascular professionals around the world by providing much-needed and requested business and operational solutions necessary to succeed in today's health care environment. It will also play a vital role in helping to address the needs of hospitals and health systems where ACC members increasingly work.

Looking farther ahead, the ACC will continue to develop and implement new, streamlined, and innovative solutions to help clinicians, hospitals, health systems, and institutions improve quality. Ongoing leadership in this area is essential to the College's success.

"Ultimately, we hope to create a suite of options that will engage both administrative leaders and clinical leaders in driving quality improvement and enhancing value within their respective practices, hospitals and health systems," says ACC President C. Michael Valentine, MD, FACC.

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Keywords: ACC Publications, ACC Scientific Session Newspaper, ACC Annual Scientific Session, ACC19, Quality Improvement, Leadership, Trustees, Patient Navigation, Anniversaries and Special Events, Outpatients, Pain Clinics, Quality of Health Care, Hospitals, Registries, Accreditation, Heart Failure, Electrophysiology, Percutaneous Coronary Intervention

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